Drug smugglers jailed after part of £6m heroin haul was hidden in furniture in Leeds

Hafiz Akhtar was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Published:12:33Friday 20 May 2016

Three men who smuggled millions of pounds worth of heroin in to the UK by hiding it in furniture have been given prison sentences totalling more than 33 years.

Hafiz Akhtar, 35, of Leeds Road, Dewsbury, was found guilty of conspiring to supply class A drugs and sentenced to 15 years after driving a hired van filled with some of the furniture to a storage unit in Leeds.

The drug smugglers hid heroin in tables.

The haul originally arrived via shipping container from Pakistan to Liverpool in 2012.

Mohammed Naiem Yaqub, 34, and Abdul Wahid, 37, both from Nelson, Lancashire, were also jailed for 11 and a half and seven years respectively at Minshull Street Crown Court.

A search on storage units and the shipping container recovered a total haul of 28.51kg.

If cut and sold in the UK, the drugs would have a potential street value of £6million.

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Tony McMullin, regional director of Border Force North Region, said: “This was an intricate concealment but thanks to the vigilance of our Border Force officers we helped stop these dangerous drugs finding their way to the streets.

“Smugglers will always develop new and elaborate methods to try to get their illegal products into the UK and detections such as this are a real testament to our officers’ expertise.”

Mohammed Naiem Yaqub, who was sentenced to 11 and a half years for conspiring to supply class A drugs.

Abdul Wahid was sentenced to eight years in prison for conspiring to supply class A drugs.